Iran-US war latest: Trump says he has no regrets about starting war after Houthis capture key Red Sea port
Donald Trump has said he does not regret launching the war against Iran, despite concerns that the conflict and rising oil and gas prices could hurt Republicans in the November midterm elections.
“I don’t believe in the word ‘regret’,” he said in an interview with Fox News, adding that if he had to do it again “I would do exactly as I did”.
Oil prices have touched $108 a barrel for the first time since May after Iran-backed Houthi militants captured Yemen’s strategic port city of Mokha, raising fears it could bring them closer to targeting shipping through a critical waterway to the Red Sea.
It puts the Houthis closer to their goal of targeting shipping through the Bab el-Mandeb waterway and could give Iran another potential point of leverage in its war with the US.
Mokha is around 50 miles from Bab el-Mandeb, a geopolitical chokepoint connecting the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden and through which about 12 per cent of the world’s goods are typically shipped.
Meanwhile, Iranian officials mocked the US military after claiming they captured a cutting-edge sea drone and “picked it up like a plastic bottle”.
